Menu

Day 3 & Heading Home

Today (July 15, 2019) is our possibly last day in Rio. It's sad, but as non revs we go with the flights loads. We had a rather lazy morning, eating breakfast at the awesome hotel buffet and packing up all our things just in case we needed a quick escape. Hunter kept researching flights making sure our plans were the best. He is very clever when it comes to finding routes for getting where we need to go. Next, we headed to the beach which was a short walk from our hotel!

Copacabana is a huge beach and very sandy. It was a far walk in gorgeous sand from the road to the shoreline. We walked along the edge of the ocean and had people selling drinks and snacks ask us if we wanted to buy any. There were also people asking us if we wanted to rent beach chairs and umbrellas. We declined and continued walking.




Eventually I needed to find a bathroom, and there was a McDonald's nearby, so we went there. We got a snack of rustic potato wedges with cheese and bacon which turned out to be pretty tasty. We also got a drink. The McDonald's in Rio allows refills which is pretty neat because most other countries we've been to do not do refills. While we sat there Hunter also looked at flights again and we made the final decision that we needed to leave tonight. Hunter was a little sad but he goes to great lengths to not miss work since we get such amazing benefits from it! After our snack, we headed back to the beach, but not without getting an ice cream cone from McDonald's. It was only 70 cents so I had to get one!



We headed back to the beach and along the way walked past one of the restaurants that was on my list of places to eat. We checked it out but it didn't seem very interesting, so we continued making our way to the beach. We walked along the sidewalk this time, passing by some cool sand sculptures. I snuck a picture in because if you took a picture they were asking for donations. There were some really amazing sandcastles as well as sculptures, one had a sign explaining they used "sugar gel" to hold it together which must be an interesting process. The translation on the sign was rough but I am curious to learn what they did, as some of the sculptures had evidently been around for quite a while as evidenced by their celebration of events that occurred weeks earlier.





We eventually made it back to our hotel and decided for lunch to eat at a nearby restaurant called Moutard & Mel. It was a buffet restaurant where you paid by the weight of the food. Hunter and I's meal came to just over $13 US together and I was full after. It was nice to try just a little bit of a bunch of local foods. We had really good fish, some cheese balls, and various local salads. Although we weren't quite sure what all we were eating it was an excellent and very reasonable lunch.



We went back to the hotel, finished gathering our things, and headed to the airport. We had to ask the front desk if we didn't make our planned flight if we could come back because our hotel room was booked till tomorrow, but we were trying to leave tonight hopefully. They were quite understanding thankfully and said if we needed to come back and they'd give us our keys again. We were both worried this might not work out but the front desk manager, said "There is no problem the room is yours" which was really sweet. Out the door, it was time for our final Brazilian Uber, if you ever come to Brazil we highly recommend downloading and using Uber as much as possible. Despite one weird experience we had a great time overall and were able to cram in a ton of activities at diverse points where transit wasn't an option. It was also nice to have a more secure form of transportation as transit in Brazil is known for crime. Cost-wise it was often even cheaper than transit and some of our rides were literally $2! When we got to the airport, we had to find the Azul check-in and while looking at the departures board, we saw that Avianca had canceled many of its flights. This makes sense as they are currently going bankrupt. In fact, we later learned that that day, a lot of their infrastructure was being auctioned off in Sao Paulo, including gate space in Santos Dumont Airport where we were standing. We became worried that we would not be making our flight if passengers were being re-accommodated, but the check-in agent didn't say anything, so off we went through security. Security was quick and easy, and they even let Hunter through with a full-sized water bottle leftover from our hotel. Once we were through, we headed to the small lounge we had access to with our priority passes because we had two hours till departure. The lounge was simple but nice and gave us a wifi connection so that Hunter could plan our next moves in Sao Paulo.

Driving to the airport

Azul check-in

The little airport lounge had little Diet Cokes

When it came time to leave, we waited till the very end of boarding and finally got called up. They tore off parts of our standby tickets and gave us another paper with our seat numbers written in pen (quite funny as in the US it's very official and here it was quite casual). It seems with Azul that despite policy standby priority is literally determined by who is standing by closest to the podium, we had noticed this quirk on our first ZED and made sure to be right there the second time around! When we went down the jet bridge we discovered Hunter's seat was occupied although mine was not. Hunter quickly told me to sit down as us and the other non revs began what was almost a game of musical chairs. Despite there being a LATAM (South American Airline) pilot ZEDding on our flight the flight attendant asked Hunter if he was willing to jumpseat. He said yes and explained to her that SkyWest operates the E175 which is very similar to the E195 on which we were flying (fun fact both are made in Brazil, and SkyWest pilots fly to GRU to pick them up from the factory). As Hunter mentally prepared himself for a five-point harness I was sitting in the back and had no clue any of this was going on, only that Hunter was still standing without a seat. After a lot of back and forth between the agents and the flight attendants all of the non revs were seated... although it was anyone's guess as to where people were sitting vs where they were supposed to be. This seemed to delay our flight for basically no reason, although it's possible it was delayed due to the weather as it was rainy and windy outside, the first change to our near-perfect weather for our visit. The takeoff from Rio was beautiful as the sun was just setting and there was a faint glow on the horizon behind the illuminated Christ the Redeemer. We definitely enjoyed flying in and out of SDU vs Rio's larger airport GIG, as the views were really incredible. Azul codeshares with United, so if you book tickets on them you will find options that go to SDU instead of GIG. SDU also has the benefit of being closer to downtown as well as Copacabana and the other major hotel areas. Azul has very nice service with drinks and full snack bags of chips on even a short hour-long flight such as this one. Overall, while a bit different we had a lot of fun flying Azul.



Sorry for the cloudy pics!






Before we knew it we were in Sao Paulo, where the real non-revving challenge was to begin. Virtually every flight to the US was full, and getting on let alone getting business looked somewhat dicey. We retraced our steps from the domestic commuter terminal over to the main international terminal. There were a couple of options to get back to the states but annoyingly all of them left at almost the exact same time meaning we had to pick at most 2 to try. We decided that an American flight to JFK and a United flight to Dulles looked the most promising and checked in for United to get boarding passes and head to security. Once again security was quite simple as was emigration. With the exit stamp, I finally now have two passport pages full! Hunter's passport meanwhile is getting almost scarily full, and might need more pages before it is up for renewal in a few years.
In order to maximize our chances, I tried to talk to the United gate agents while Hunter went down and checked with the American agents. United seemed very full but Hunter knew a secret that made the numbers look far worse than they were. Upon arriving down at the American gate Hunter also discovered he had gotten SSSS, a special level of extra screening on his American ticket. He went through the interview and screening process required for this while I watched the United flights move around as people scrambled to get home. While the American flight to JFK looked decent for us Hunter was very wary as dozens of people were going to miss the earlier American flights to MIA and DFW. Logically, he assumed they would be using JFK as a fallback when they missed their first choices. Hunter asked the American agent about this and she even said she had no clue what was going on with the dozens of people trying to non rev on the oversold Miami flight.

Taking the bus to the other terminal - I was getting tired

Feeling disheartened about our prospects with American, Hunter headed back to the United gate and before long we heard our names called. We were cleared! in Polaris Business even, although the seats weren't together they were near each other and we were very happy to be getting home. We gladly accepted the seats and boarded quickly. While we were looking at the menus on United trying to decide what to eat (more on that later) we noticed that the plane seemed weirdly empty for a flight we barely made. About half of Polaris was unoccupied. Eventually, a few more seats filled up but it was still nowhere near full. Adrian, our flight attendant, was really funny and personable and took our orders. I decided on the beef, while Hunter picked a Shrimp Alfredo. Eventually, the crew realized that a lot of people were missing and the gate agents confirmed this, even telling Hunter he could move back next to me! This was really nice as it allowed a revenue passenger to sit with her elderly mother in law as well. The seats on the 767 we were flying are in an odd 2-1-2 layout with the middle seat bordering both aisles. This is really nice for couples like us as we get to be closet together on the window but is awkward when you are seated next to someone you don't know and aren't comfortable climbing over in the night. As we waited for departure curiosity got the best of Hunter and he checked the American loads one last time before canceling our listing on the slightly later JFK flight. Frustratingly, he found that not only had no one moved over from the DFW and MIA flights but that 6 people checked in above us had no-showed and we had actually been cleared into the same wonderful Flagship Business we had flown down to Sao Paulo on with American. Sadly there was no switching at this point, but the seats on American weren't together so we didn't mind being on United and getting to be right next to each other. We eventually pushed out of GRU with a still somewhat empty cabin although at the last minute someone managed to snag an empty business seat. Hunter was pretty sure he was just an economy passenger who managed to take advantage of the chaos that seems to be inherent to boarding flights in Brazil. As we pushed back we could finally breathe and relax. Funnily prior to takeoff, we didn't even have plans for our flights beyond Washington DC, but we were happy to be on our way back to the states together. After takeoff, dinner was served. Both our entrees were delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed them as we weren't as stuffed as we were on the way down. While in this case American might have had a slightly nicer plane, United almost always has better food in Business class. For dessert we both got sundaes since we were sitting in the back the flight attendant didn't have to save any ingredients when he was making ours and as a joke he gave Hunter what was literally probably a half cup of nuts as toppings. He went to take it back, but Hunter decided it looked good and to keep it. The nutty sundae was delicious! We watched "Isn't it Romantic", which was ok but not as funny as we hoped.



The starter

Hunter's dinner

Stormy's Dinner


During our flight, we had access to the united website so Hunter found there was space to Ottawa and Las Vegas. He listed me for a flight home and him for a long economy ride west to Vegas. Before long we were both off to sleep with bottles of water to stay hydrated through the night. We woke up to a yummy frittata service somewhere between Bermuda and the coast of Virginia. Alongside were lots of fruit and berries which is always a welcome addition.






We landed a little bit early July 16, 2019 and quickly taxied to our gate. The airport was almost deserted and we were the first passengers off the first international flight of the day, which made clearing customs a breeze. We quickly re-entered TSA and discovered my flight had been delayed 3 hrs due to crew rest, something Hunter has to deal with at work on a daily basis! It was interesting to see the real-world implications of his work. Since Hunter had an hour or so before he needed to be at his gate and I now had several hours we decided to go explore the Turkish Airlines Lounge, which is one of the most highly reviewed Priority Pass lounges. It was quite nice and very quiet. As we were sitting there Hunter decided to randomly check some American flights westbound to see if he could find a better option than the almost 6 hours in economy to Vegas. To his surprise there actually was an AA flight to LAX leaving in 45 mins with empty first class, we quickly said our goodbyes and he ran down to the gate and got cleared almost immediately. While connecting in LAX was about 3 hours longer it gave him a comfy first-class seat for the transcontinental flight. For his second breakfast of the day, Hunter got a delicious chicken breakfast enchilada that he forgot to take pictures of because it was just so good!

The lounge entrance

The view from the lounge


I was glad he was on a nice flight and waited for my flight to Ottawa which left as expected a few hours late. I was already through customs and in the car with my parents before Hunter reached California, despite the delay. During his short layover in LAX he stopped by PF Chang's one of the restaurants we have access to for a quick lunch. He easily made the flight to LAS and was on his way driving home

Despite our reservations, particularly when it came to safety, Brazil was amazing and we found the people very friendly. In addition, it was very reasonably priced and we had a ton of fun visiting. Our lovely flights home were the perfect end to another great adventure! However, we already find ourselves asking where to next?

Date: July 15-16, 2019

2 comments:

  1. This was worth waiting for! Loved all the details. By the way, I would not have gotten this one had Holly not forwarded it to me !?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry about the delay! The last blog posts always tend to get away from me when I have to return to the 'real' world (laughing).

      I am working on setting up something to send automatic emails when a new post is published! Stay tuned.

      Delete